Chapter 6
Chapter 6
She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. She edged closer to the desk. She hoped it was a trick of her vision, still unsteady in this new body.
She rubbed her eyes and looked again. Countless photos of her. Plastered across the entire wall.
Photos of her smiling. Playing with her sisters. Tripping. Eating. Studying until she passed out at her desk. They were pinned all over in a messy collage. Thousands of her own face. A face that felt foreign even to herself. It covered her whole field of vision like a mosaic. Overwhelming. Beyond words. Countless brown eyes stared back, packed tight like evil eye talismans. A massive secret camera parade. She couldn’t speak.
The finishing touch was the red scrawl slashed across everything. Angry, ugly handwriting. Stains she couldn’t read filled every gap between the photos. They looked like splattered blood. Some had red ink running down in three streaks, like the writer lost control of the pen in their rage.
“Wh-What is this…”
She stumbled back. Shock crawled up her spine. That’s when she noticed the small table below. She’d missed it before, too stunned by the wall. The white wood stood stark against the red chaos above it. Little things were laid out on it with eerie neatness. Her shaking eyes took them in. Her body went stiff. A fresh wave of horror.
No… it can’t be…
Hoping she was wrong, she picked the items up with trembling hands. She looked closely. Her worst suspicion became certainty. Hair ties she’d lost. Pens and pencils. Things she’d thought were just misplaced. Strands of hair gathered into bundles. Clipped nails. The color and shape told her whose they were.
The strange, sticky emotion clinging to this grotesque collection. It brought to mind the secret rituals of underground cultists. Terrifying summoning rites. Milana swayed. Her face went pale. A chill ran through her bones.
“What… is this…”
The handwriting was nearly illegible. With her brain on red alert, she made out one line.
‘Debt from parents’ death… two hundred thousand equi.’
The next line made her heart lurch.
‘If I bring up the sisters, she might give in?’
“He’s insane…”
Had she earned his grudge without even knowing it? Bova, no, the dark young lord. When? Why?
Milana had spent her whole life trying to be the most harmless person in the world. She collapsed to the floor. The tall, handsome man now wearing her face. The shock and despair were too much. She fainted.
♥ ♥ ♥
Only a mage who keeps their wits sharp survives a failed flight spell.
The professors drilled that into them, snarling it out every time they smacked a student down. Milana repeated it to herself hundreds of times. It was a desperate struggle to hold onto reason, which felt like it might snap under the flood of fear at any moment. When she woke up that day after fainting, the first thing she did was get her sisters to safety. She sent a letter to her great-aunt, who was looking after them. ‘Please, leave them at an orphanage in a far-off rural town for now.’
She enclosed some money with it. She begged her to find somewhere safe and clean, promising she’d come get them soon.
‘And that’s +1 to my chances of getting murdered…’
Since she was in Bova’s body, the money she sent was Bova’s, of course. Her own meager savings were tucked away in her dorm room, which she currently did not have the guts to go anywhere near.
On the first day, she escaped Bova’s dorm room and hid in her secret spot on campus, a hollowed-out garden boulder like a small cave. She curled up tight. The space was roomy enough for Milana’s body, but for Bova’s large frame it was basically a compression torture device. Still, she couldn’t bring herself to leave. Being alone in that room, with that cursed shrine covered in her own face, was worse. And she was terrified the dark young lord, full of rage, would show up any second.
On the second day, she couldn’t take the cramped space anymore and fled her hideout. Pain won over fear. With nowhere to go, she crept around like a thief, sticking to corners where no one would look.
On the third day, shaking, she found her way to the school cafeteria. Her stomach had been empty for two days and was screaming at her to put food in it. She hated how open the space was, but there was no other way to get a cheap meal. She had to eat with Bova’s money, and she really didn’t want to raise her chances of a brutal death by spending too much.
And most importantly, today’s menu included chocolate pudding for dessert…
The desire for dessert and a real meal beat out the fear. She sat down timidly in the furthest corner of the cafeteria, eating her food in tiny bites, when a wave of misery suddenly washed over her.
‘What the hell is happening to me…’
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